PERU – Halloween night, 1974.

Dan Mongosa had just returned home from trick-or-treating around Peru when the sounds of a rock concert drifted from the Peru circus building to his backyard two blocks away.

“I thought, ‘That’s odd. What the hell is that?’” Mongosa said.

The then 10-year-old jumped on his bike and pedaled down to the building at 154 N. Broadway – the home to the Peru Amateur Circus – and snuck around to a back alley. The doors stood open, so Mongosa slipped inside.

On stage stood four guys with “dark, black, frizzy hair.” The music was deafening. One of the songs had something to do with firefighters.

After the third song, a roadie spotted Mongosa watching the show from the back of the building and told him to get lost. But before he left, Mongosa had to know: Who were these guys?

The roadie told him. The band’s name was Kiss.

“I said, ‘Kiss? What kind of name is that?’” Mongosa said. “It sounds like a girl’s lipstick.’”

That’s right. Kiss, the iconic American rock band known for their face paint and over-the-top live concerts that included fire breathing and blood-spitting, played a concert in Peru. On Halloween night. Inside the Peru circus building.

What followed became the stuff of local legend. The crowd stormed the gates before the show, forcing organizers to push back the start time. Police and firefighters ended up on scene after someone called to report people were drinking and smoking marijuana inside the building.

“It’s almost turned into an urban legend,” Mongosa said. “It’s like, ‘Did that really happen? It’s just one of those weird moments in life that you come across.

Today, it’d be tough to find someone who has never heard of Kiss, which was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, or at least heard one of their mega-hits like “Rock and Roll All Nite” or “Lick It Up.”

But in 1974, the rockers from New York City were virtually unknown. The band had just put on its first show in January 1973 for an audience of three in Queens, New York.

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